December is a weird time for music. Traditional knowledge, or maybe it’s just convention or some weird advice, has made it so that hardly any bands released new music in December, yet every year, there seems to be one or two albums that manage to drop in December that catch my notice. Those albums tend to be incredibly good. Well, 2025 is no exception.
Fuck Spotify, always and forever, but Spotify Wrapped doesn’t count December streams in its algorithm for Wrapped, or any of the year-end numbers it sends to artists in hopes of getting free publicity. Perhaps that is part of the reason for the lack of albums, but I guess that’s irrelevant. What is relevant is Sad Snack’s debut album on Sell The Heart Records after three full years of releasing singles.
Generally speaking, I always think more is better when it comes to albums. I almost always want 40+ minute albums with 12-16 songs. This is a case where the album is only nine songs, and it hit perfectly. I swear, everything in this album just makes me smile, and when it ended, I wasn’t left wanting more; I was satiated. And then I hit play again, listened to the whole album, and then a third time. I didn’t want more songs, I just wanted a second helping of the ones they already gave me.
Sad Snack is a six-piece ska band featuring four vocalists who split lead, backing, and supporting vocals throughout the album, which adds a lot of texture and richness while keeping the sound fresh, as each vocalist leads on different songs and each adds a ton of range. The band features a guitar, bass, drums, and three horns, with 2 being saxophones, and several songs also heavily feature keys. The music production and composition on this album are two of my favourites from the entire year. Sad Snack does such a phenomenal job of building and releasing tension, setting tone, and creating the texture of the song that I don’t tend to care too much about the lyrics, which is extremely unusual for me. This is, in no way, an indictment against the lyrics, just an expression of how much the music of this album draws me in.
The album begins with the first of many phenomenal rising action instrumental portions on the album, in “Survive This”. It’s also one of several songs featuring Esteban Flores on keyboards, and I think the keys add so much texture to an already incredible sound that the album becomes nearly perfect.
I don’t know how to discuss any of the songs on the album individually, but the juxtaposition of “Hospital Food” after “Survive This” is amazing. While the rising action and the first bars of horns, then the galloping drums and single guitar rhythm, before the first vocals of Survive This get me hyped as the lyrics drop in “I won’t survive this, moving fast and barreling on through” over the keys is amazing. It’s perfectly orchestrated, and everything is so organised and plays so well together. However, my favorite part of “Hospital Food” is the exact opposite. A cacophony, a chaotic spinning vortex of horns, drums, and guitar near the close of the song, whips me into a frenzy.
The title track, “Vending Machine,” may be my favorite song on the album, as it rips my heart out every single time the song begins. Empty guitar strums and femme vocals lead the intro, with slow-rising tension building beneath. A snare joins the fray, building alongside the heartfelt, slow, vocal pleading as the guitar adds a chord progression: “Please don’t look at me, I’m so sorry.” The keys add more tension as the vocals build with anger, and the horns chime in. The power of the vocals, the backing vocals, and the constant musical storytelling from the brass, drums, and keys make the song’s close feel unstoppable.
Halfway through the album is “Nervous Jam”, and given my love of the instrumentation throughout the album, the inclusion of a powerful, jazzy instrumental track at the halfway point is exactly what I wanted and didn’t even realize it. I have to say, I don’t remember the last time I heard an album that made me fall in love with the drums quite like this, and holy shit does this song take me on an adventure every time I hear it.
On an album that is chock full of songs that I have fallen in love with, the end of the album really blows me away. RVIVL’s intro is just incredible. An entire minute of incredible rising, building, and explosive instrumental emotion, mixed with some jazzy horns, that last a full minute before they drop into a catchy upstroke ska rhythm as the vocals kick in: “My broken bones are gonna heal again, someday.” It gets me so pumped because the songs make you feel the message. The end of the song has such perfect gang vocals that make you feel like you’re not alone, and make you want to scream at the top of your lungs- to be a part of the song.
The album ends with a song that feels like insecurity and chaos and heartbreak and isolation, and depression, and not taking your meds, all boiled into something beautiful and soul-crushing. The song ends with overlaid choruses from different vocalists: “Do you ever feel like garbage?” “Waste a-waaaayyyy” “The sweet ephemerality that I get to call reality, wastes away” and it ends.
Silence. It’s over. 25 minutes of 9 beautiful, powerful, emotional songs, all laid out before you, crashing down in an emotional wreck, “wastes away”. And stunned emotional silence. It’s over. And I’m heartbroken. So I hit play one more time. The album restarts. The rising action. The building tension. I’m cured once more as I get back on the train, knowing how it’s going to end. Unable and unwilling to get back off and stop it.
Written by Gimp Leg
